Post navigation

Why is Distrust of Politicians So High?

The Founders argued over successive terms for Congress and the Presidency but allowed life terms for Judges (subject to “good behavior”). Was this an accident or did they have a different notion of fidelity when it came to Judges as opposed to Legislators and Executives?

Was Montesquieu correct in asserting that Direct Democracy fell because of factions–majoritarian politics— and were the Federalists specious in their argument that the faction would have to win in each Sovereign State so that the argument made in Federalist 10 really does not hold up when one considers “vote trading” by representatives?

Cronyism is the market’s response to more rules and more distance from rule making .

The American and French Revolutions contained two embryonic themes brought down throughout history: overthrowing the power of absolute monarchy and to one degree or another, empowering the people’s representatives with the power to govern. A generic feature of the American Revolution and its enduing Constitutionalism was its evident fear of an unshackled executive authority as well as the fear that populism would lead to legislative majoritarianism. There was a corresponding faith that Liberty would create a multitude of economic opportunities that should remain largely unshackled. The dividing line within the Constitutional Convention was the need for a strong central government to defend the new Republic from external and internal enemies and the fear that too strong a central authority would usurp the power of the thirteen separate sovereignties that were giving up some of their authority to create centralized authority for the purposes of safety from abroad and domestic harmony within. The latter concern was often conjoined with a preference for transparency and a faith that local control — seen and disciplined by local voters — would limit the feared excesses of a State over its own inhabitants.

The rather sophisticated structure of “checks and balances” designed into the Constitution was always a compromised outcome that reflected the need to create Federal authority while preventing such authority from becoming a new absolute “monarch” all on its own.

The same thematic division still runs thru American politics: between political leaders who “know what is best for the people” (and who also dislike “market generated outcomes);” and politicians and political theorists who believe that creating opportunity is sufficient while favoring minimal interference with market determined outcomes.

At a philosophical level, “market types” believe political rights begin with paying strong attention to property rights and “control types,” who believe that the “people” have both a right and a duty to push outcomes in an egalitarian direction, because equal opportunity is not sufficient for justice.

Recent Reviews

‘It is not often in the history of economic thought that a book emerges which is a cross between a Dostoyevskeite analysis of crime and punishment and a well-reasoned assault on established doctrine. Bernard Munk has accomplished that feat with this monograph on corporate mis-governance. He is dismayed that the real world of the corporate boardroom seems to operate often in sinister fashion inconsistent with the benign working of the invisible hands – and worse still, the capital markets fail miserably on occasion to exert any discipline.’
— Brendan Brown, Economist and author of The Global Curse of the Federal Reserve